Bobbi Morse's Bad Day
by bhut
Summary: (Post S2 - AU but canon-compliant.) Between director Coulson, Dr. List, and Grant Ward, Bobbi Morse had a really bad day.


**Bobbi Morse's bad day**

 _Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to Marvel™._

 _Note: this story is rated M for some of its subject and sexual matters._

Bobbi Morse was having a bad day. Well, actually, she was having a bad week. Well, actually, most of her month had gone steadily down the drain when Phil Coulson invited Grant Ward and his deceased ally, Kara Lynn Palomas, onto the S.H.I.E.L.D. base, and they had promptly captured and kidnapped Bobbi as soon as they had an opportunity to do so.

To a regular person this _was_ bad; to Bobbi Morse, who was a high-ranking S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, this... was not _so_ bad: she had worse, she had potentially worse, and the main reason (well, one of them, actually) why she was depressed about her latest kidnapping was not because of the actual torture, but because of Kara Lynn.

Kara Lynn Palomas, 'agent 33'... Bobbi felt that the way she was being 'handled' by May and Coulson back in the S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ was rather high-handed; Coulson, at least, was willing to entertain the notion of Palomas returning to the agency as a full member (eventually; with a proper probation period at first), but May was all for erasing her memories alongside Ward (apparently, May didn't like Palomas almost as much as Palomas herself didn't like Morse). Bobbi felt that that was unfair and judgemental, at least until Palomas proved ready and willing to work with Ward in order to kidnap and torture her (and killing some people in the process). Considering that Bobbi had known Kara Lynn in the past this realization had hurt her more than the physical torture had.

Ward...as for him, Coulson promised to capture and eliminate him, but Bobbi did not believe the director. Firstly, Ward (and Palomas) only got the opportunity to kidnap her because Coulson decided to ally with Ward and invite him to S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ, which meant a certain amount of either prejudice or undeserved confidence and arrogance on Coulson's side towards his former subordinate - a big mistake, yes, but the disaster on the _Iliad_ had dwarfed it. In the same vein that caused him to assume that Ward would be helpful and cooperating with them, Coulson had assumed the Jiaying – mother of Skye – was a peaceful dove or something like that. The result? Many, many deaths on both sides, including both Jiaying's and Gonzales' – something that Coulson was _supposedly_ trying to avoid.

...Bobbi did not accuse Coulson of being more underhanded and political and ruthless than how he apparently looked. That was tactless and pointless – at least for now. What she did was to imply that she wanted to leave because of _Gonzales_ – not _Ward_ , and that was enough.

Oh no, no one told Morse to pack her bags and leave – S.H.I.E.L.D. couldn't afford to do that, especially when the agency required all capable agents to be on board (there were already rumors going around of either Hydra coming back, or of rogue S.H.I.E.L.D. agents striking on their own, so every man – and woman – in the agency counted), but somehow, after Morse confessed that she was taking time off (at the very least; at most, she would be debriefed) because of _Gonzales_ – not _Ward_ , the mood had changed (or so she felt) from 'please come back ASAP – we'll miss you here' to 'if you got to go – you got to go, good luck'. Coulson, certainly, had largely scrambled and abbreviated his speech and visit to Morse's sick bay – apparently, leaving because you've been tortured by Ward was bad, but leaving because you were loyal to Gonzales and miss him was okay, and Bobbi Morse was fine with it, really, because she _did_ want to leave, but...

But honestly? She did not know what she _did_ want – to stay or to go. She _did_ have plans as to what to do in her life post-S.H.I.E.L.D. (and she could always go back – so far she officially was on a sick leave, nothing more), but somehow she had always assumed that that would happen when she was a good deal older – not now, with her current age... Plus, she did enjoy working for S.H.I.E.L.D. – once. When faced with working for Coulson's S.H.I.E.L.D., she is not sure anymore. Maybe she should work with Mack on the _Iliad_? This could work-

Bobbi Morse is suddenly aware of people sitting next to her on both her left and right. This could be a problem. One of them says "Onvad-s-unod?" – or some other, similar nonsense, and there is a panel of semi-opaque glass sliding across Bobbi's mind, cutting her consciousness from the rest of her, and... that is it, really. The command word had been said, the forgotten and hidden Hydra backdoor into her mind, installed by Whitehall (who had been paranoid, but also correct, at least in regards to Bobbi) was activated, and now Bobbi Morse had been captured by Hydra, and her bad day had just turned worse.

/

Contrary to Morse's expectations (not that she had any, but still), her captors brought her not to some dilapidated building or a similar place where Ward would be holed up with his minions, but rather to an office building, rather similar to what Dr. Whitehall used to have for _his_ HQ. This was actually a step in wrong direction – having encountered by Ward and Whitehall, Bobbi felt quite confident in believing that Whitehall had been the more dangerous one, in no small part because he was the more intelligent and imaginative one of the two, and if the men who had captured her weren't working for Ward, but for a more Whitehall kind of person, then Bobbi was even in more trouble than she had assumed.

Unfortunately, with the mind block still in place and active, there was not anything she could do either – just to blindly follow the instructions of her captors and they were simple: to stay where she was told and to sit on a chair. In her mind, Bobbi raged and did her best to bash through the block, but sadly she was not very good with it, no. She really needed FitzSimmons to help her out here – but they were absent (for the obvious reasons), and so she was in trouble.

Then the doors opened and in walked two more men. The one on the right was Grant Ward, who seemed to have grown thinner and harder since they had last met, and there was an odd blankness in his eyes too – it wasn't that he was brainwashed, as Bobbi was (though she too was more mind- _blocked_ than – _washed_ , here), it was more of a specialist's blankness before he (or she) was about to undertake something nasty – and Bobbi herself was a specialist, so when she saw that blankness aimed at her, she didn't like it.

And the man on the left was the one most likely holding Ward's leash. Bobbi had recognized him from the briefings that she had read about the Arctic mission. The man's name was Dr. List, and he was one of the higher-ranking Hydra heads, especially with Strucker in prison and Whitehall dead. From what she had read, List was not that much different from Whitehall, save that he was more brutal than Whitehall was. And considering that Bobbi was currently brainwashed, and unable to defend herself, (and even if she could, she was not sure that she would be able to defeat Ward in a direct and proper face-off all the same), it all added to one thing:

Bobbi Morse was most likely to be doomed.

"And there you have it, agent Ward," List said in his customary, straight-to-the-point, manner. "Agent Morse, ready and willing to fight for our cause!"

"But of course, sir – compliance will be rewarded, we didn't doubt you for one minute," Ward nods, his voice and body posture still carefully blank, or rather - neutral. "I'll be honored in participating in your plan to bring down Coulson and his crew. Shall I take agent Morse now and get started right away?"

"Yes, you do that," List nods, already dismissing the two of them from his presence. "Good luck with that."

Ward nods, walks over to Bobbi, and helps her to stand up, by taking her hand. Normally, Bobbi would find this disgusting, but with most of her higher mental processes blocked, she complies quite willingly.

...Is this going to be her fate?

/

As they get back downstairs and into Grant's car, Bobbi is still aware that they are still holding hands. True, it could have been worse – Grant could have been holding her ass or some other body part, but this still is not very encouraging. Bobbi can still see the blankness in the man's eyes, it is almost like walking with a T-1000, to use Skye's expression, only right now it does not sound very funny.

They get into the car, and Grant is still silent. So's Bobbi, but only because she was not ordered to speak, not at the moment.

"Agent Morse," Grant swivels around. "We meet again."

"Yes sir," comes the pre-downloaded reply from Bobbi's mouth. "We have. Compliance will be rewarded. Hail Hydra!"

"Of course, of course," Ward nods, as he pulls out a tablet and opens a video on it. "Have a look at that, would you?"

Bobbi does. It is Kara Lynn, being sexually abused by many, many men in Hydra uniforms, while Whitehall is off to the side, droning about the price of failure (and boning Bakshi - repeatedly).

"Now," Ward continues gently, once the video had run its course – it went for less than twenty minutes, but it were very intense twenty minutes, "I am no Whitehall, I know where I stand in regards to this, so I am not going to do this to you – we wouldn't want you to have a _swelling_ , or an _inflammation_ down there, so that it would _interfere_ with you duties, as it had happened to Kara Lynn before the big earthquake down in San Juan." He pauses. "However, if I give you a single hand-job or two, then your body won't be affected at all, and you will be able to do your duties without any problem. Do you want me to give you a hand-job, agent Morse? It might even be _pleasant!_ "

"No sir, agent Ward, please don't," Bobbi immediately replies. She feels tears brimming in her eyes. She does not care. "Please don't - rape me," she manages to say, before the mind-block blocks her powers of speech.

"Why not?" Ward does not blink. "You didn't mind when it happened to Kara Lynn, now did you?"

"I didn't know this would happen," Bobbi manages to speak. "I didn't know what would happen! I thought that she would be fine!"

"Is that why you didn't try to rescue her alongside Simmons?" Ward presses on. "Answer truthfully!"

"I- I- It's a long story," Bobbi says, wrestling with her tongue, which feels like a block of wood in her mouth.

"Then start at the beginning – we can afford it, we got a loose schedule," comes the nonchalant reply. "I'm listening."

Involuntarily, Bobbi takes a deep breath. "I used to be better than this," she tells her interlocutor. "I used to work with Burton, with Romanoff. Then I ended up going into the past on a mission and had accidentally changed it, changing the present. I lost most of my old friends, save for Hunter. We married, divorced, had a child – and this is when Kara Lynn came in. She was a field medic on our team and a friend of mine. At that moment I was pregnant and trying to stay away from Lance, so I stayed over at her place – for a while. Unfortunately, it did not work. Kara Lynn – she was in love with me, just as how you were, or are, with Skye-"

"I never was," Grant says softly. "I had an obsession with her, and now that it is gone, both of us can move on. This is for the best. Please continue. Kara Lynn loved you, or thought that she did, but you weren't in love with her?"

"No," Bobbi says quietly, "I was not. I am – I am not as adventurous as Lance is, and I am straight, it seems. When I realized that she planned to make her, the baby and me – his name is Mason, he is five now, BTW – into a family, I left, I fled, and went back to Lance. In a couple of months I gave birth, nursed him, put him into the S.H.I.E.L.D. kindergarten, did a couple of missions, and some time later I ran into Kara Lynn again. It seems that while I was away, she seduced Lance – he was always weak in this matter – and eventually she gave birth to a daughter, Suzy Therese, who is Mason's half-sister on their father's side. She's four – four and a half – now."

"And you know about her," Ward says calmly. "I've checked her and Mason out – you're the legal guardian of both of them, now that Kara Lynn's – gone. Are you going to be a mother to the girl or did you plan on abusing her?"

"...I would never, I never," Bobbi snaps, almost bursting through the mind block through sheer emotional strength. "Who do you take me for?!"

"A woman who hated her mother so much that would rather be tortured than apologize, sincerely or not," the reply matches Bobbi's statement tone for tone. "My own parents treated me and my younger siblings like shit – and we were biologically related. You and Suzy Therese – you don't have even that."

"No, we don't," Bobbi sinks back down into her seat, even as Grant continues to drive (he had began to drive a while back, but Bobbi had her mind on other things at the moment. "And I honestly cannot say that I will be a good mother – I don't know, I don't know much about parenthood," she adds, before realizing just with _whom_ she was talking about all this time and what it does entail for her, this admission. "Can I – can I beg, sir?" she asks quietly, hating herself for being this helpless _thing_ , a human doll in Grant Ward's not so gentle hands.

"Do you care about your boy?" the latter asks instead. "I've been given to understand by the staff that you're the more attentive and caring parent of Mason out of you two."

"Of course!" Bobbi replies without hesitation. "Lance is a great guy, but he isn't the most responsible or sensible one around; in fact, I am pretty sure that he doesn't even know about Suzy Therese."

"And will you care about her the same way now that you're her guardian?" Grant presses on.

"Yes!" Bobbi says, before simmering down. "But that is not the same – responsibility doesn't equate to love, and there was a lot of pain between me and Kara Lynn. Do with me whatever you will-"

"I don't like you, Morse," Grant cuts her off, "especially because you remind me of me, and I am currently not a very good role model, not at all."

Bobbi says nothing.

"But this isn't about you, or me, or even Kara Lynn," Grant continues. "It's about the children. For their sakes, I'm letting you go!"

Bobbi's eyes budge. "Why?" she asks, even though her tongue still feels wooden and her common sense is telling her to listen to the mind-block for once and shut up. "You're-"

"A monster? No," Grant replies, curtly. "I think I am beginning to figure out just what, and who, I am, and if the others – Coulson, Johnson, others – think differently, they'll learn. I am a human being, and as such I got values. And one of them tells me that I must let you go."

Bobbi holds her tongue this time.

"And as for the actual Hydra plan," Grant pulls Bobbi closer and whispers to her...

/

 _Some time later..._

Phil Coulson was having a bad day. Well, actually, he was having a bad week. Well, actually, most of his month had gone steadily down the drain when he had invited Grant Ward and his deceased ally, Kara Lynn Palomas, onto the S.H.I.E.L.D. base, and they had promptly captured and kidnapped Bobbi as soon as they had an opportunity to do so. The result was an ugly, bloody mess, and now it appeared to have developed into a sequel.

Coulson is not quite sure what to do with Bobbi Morse – well other than to have Fitz to deprogram her from whatever mental control and conditioning that the late Whitehall had subjected her too (and she is currently undertaking it, too). Not so long ago he had been fully sympathetic to her; now he is still sympathetic, but-

But to be honest, he always had his own problems with agent Morse, starting with loyalty. Yes, she was loyal to S.H.I.E.L.D., but to Gonzales' S.H.I.E.L.D., and now that Gonzales is gone, Morse's own loyalties were shaken-up, to put it lightly.

Coulson did not object, not really: they were not Hydra; if Morse would chose to stay and continue her job off her own free will, she was welcome to do so; if she did not, she was free to leave and live the rest of her life however she chose – fair enough.

...Of course, Coulson was not that naive to doubt that Hydra – or whatever passed for Hydra these days – would not try to kidnap Morse again, so he sent Skye and Lincoln to tail and save Bobbi if necessary. The result was a mixed bag, but generally dissatisfying for Coulson's end – Hydra _did_ kidnap Morse, but when Skye and Lincoln tried to save her, they ran into an obstacle, and it was an orc.

Well, not a real orc from Middle-Earth, but some sort of an InHuman in a ski mask that did a very good job of obscuring his facial features, and even those that could be seen were distinctly orc-like. Thus, either there are InHumans now working for Hydra, or Middle-Earth is real, and Hydra had established contact either with the Lord of the Ring or one of his lackeys – and Coulson is not sure which option is worse.

In the end, this did not matter. The orc, or the InHuman, was still tough enough, and trained enough, to fight Skye and Lincoln to a standstill, until Ward arrived and apparently caused an explosion with several well-placed shots, allowing his minion or ally to escape. It does not matter – because with Ward, it is the same old game: either he is trying to bring S.H.I.E.L.D. down or he is trying to get back into S.H.I.E.L.D. Coulson does not know why, he does not care why, but he has no intention of letting Ward back in. In another time, another choice, another life – where Palomas is still alive and Morse wasn't tortured, he would be willing to give him another chance – but after this? Either it is a bullet to the head, or – if Ward is willing to be honestly useful – it is T.A.H.I.T.I. Nothing else, and if Ward is trying to bring S.H.I.E.L.D. down instead, he is dead, just as List and the rest of the Hydra cohorts will be.

That, unfortunately, brings them back to Morse. Coulson is still sympathetic to the blonde woman, but not enough to deny that she had been heavily compromised, and with her loyalty still unclear... Well, no, it is clear – Morse is loyal to S.H.I.E.L.D. in theory; in practice it is another story, but her heart is still in the right place.

Her mind, however, is something else, and Coulson does not deny to himself that he would rather have her on the _Iliad_ , alongside Mack, another agent, who is loyal to S.H.I.E.L.D., but not so sure about Coulson. With the situation regarding the children, however, this plan would have to change. Odds are that Morse _is_ going to retire – from active duty, at any rate, and dedicate at least some of her time to the children...because if she doesn't? Well, Coulson is already unimpressed with the way she had transformed her relationships with Hunter and Palomas into some sort of a sordid tabloid triangle (if the media learned about it, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s name would be mud again, at least for a while), and if she were to discard them, using her loyalty (already dubious, possibly compromised) to S.H.I.E.L.D. as an excuse...it would be the last time she did that.

But for now, while there are bigger fish out in the sea – Ward, List, their allies – Morse is going to work in S.H.I.E.L.D.'s HQ, serving as a decoy (at least to an extent – she is going to be doing some office work in any case), until Hydra's – or Ward's – contact, well, contacts her, and then S.H.I.E.L.D.'s trap will be sprung and Hydra will be gone for good.

Or so Phil Coulson and his friends hope.

End


End file.
